Pakistan is a country founded in 1933 and is located west of India and China. It formed from the unification of some of the upper regions of India, where the ruling power of Britain had weakened from Gandhi’s independence movements (in fact, Pakistan was still under British rule until 1947 when it gained independence). The people in this area were mostly Muslim and Pakistan was formed amid fears that the Muslim would be neglected in politics by Hindus.
The etymology of the country’s name is quite peculiar. Pakistan is an acronym of the five regions that formed it: Punjab (P), Afghan (A), Kashmir (K), Sind (S), and Baluchistan (TAN), combined with I for Islam. Also, the word “Pakistan” is a portmanteau of Pak, which means “clean/pure” in Hindustani, and –stan, which stands for a country in Turkish.
Interestingly, the word Pakistan was devised by British students at Cambridge University.
